


forever trying to find her way out

by rosegardeninwinter



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Mockingjay, but sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosegardeninwinter/pseuds/rosegardeninwinter
Summary: a loose take on this prompt for Octoberlark on tumblr: “It was a Sunday in October, the air cool and pungent with dying things.”
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	forever trying to find her way out

The Mockingjay makes up her mind to go hunting when the first leaf floats down onto the main road. It touches the ground silently, but it might have sounded a bomb blast, the fright it gives her.

She shields her eyes from the bright noon sun and stares out at the forest, at the downed fence posts and disarrayed coils of barbed wire that still mark a threshold into the beyond.

“What is it?” The man who splays his hand over her shoulder was once heralded as a revolutionary spark. That was before the fire he helped start took his right eye and clouded his left. He relies on her now, and she relies on him, in the aftermath of a war she was never meant to win.

“The weather’s turning,” says the Mockingjay. “We can’t leave her out there in the cold.”

“She won’t come in,” warns the man hollowly. He’s not trying to discourage her, only reminding her of the inevitable.

“I have to try,” she replies. “I have to.”

He doesn’t want to be a hindrance, but she insists he come with her, helping him fumble on patchy gloves and hunting boots he can’t lace anymore.

“The lake, do you think?” he wonders aloud when they’re crunching over a razed, ashy field, what’s left of the meadow. “Or would she have moved on?”

The Mockingjay pinches the end of her braid. “No,” she says in a thin voice. “No, she wouldn’t.”

It isn’t a question of tracking their prey. The Mockingjay never was woods wise. Her companion was, but he can barely find his way around a kitchen these days, and anyway, they’d scare her away trying to sneak up.

If they wait long enough, she’ll come to them.

The lake is quiet under a dreary, yellow sky. She helps him take a seat on a downed log and unwraps their hastily cobbled lunch: bread, blackberries and thermoses of ginger tea. She eats with her gaze trained to the opposite bank. On this side, it’s flat. On the other, it slopes up, dotted with copses of birch and clusters of large, mossy stones. One feebly winding creek feeds down into the still water below.

If she comes, she’ll come from there.

“Why is she never concerned about us?” he muses aloud. “If she is where she thinks she is. Why isn’t she more upset to see you—us—here?”

The Mockingjay shakes her head. “She doesn’t think we’re here, Gale. To her, we’re ghosts. We’re dead, gone, beyond the reach of harm.” She shifts her feet and heaves an unsteady breath. “Everyone’s a ghost to her.”

“Except him,” Gale whispers. “She doesn’t think he’s a ghost.”

“She does,” the Mockingjay murmurs, “Some part of her does. She’s just — she’s just decided not to believe it.”

“Wish I could decide not to believe some of the things we’ve seen,” Gale says sourly.

“No you don’t.” She takes his hand. “Not really. It’s better to know.”

He doesn’t answer, just grips her hand. They sit like that for a long time, watching a squirrel spring from one bough to the next or water beetles make tiny ripples in the lake. She gets fidgety after too much silence, and rummages through the bag she’s brought: an electric lamp, some bandages, a pack of Rooba’s best jerky, and a knife, just in case.

If they can’t convince her to come back —

“Prim.” Gale jars her shoulder. “Is that her?” He points vaguely, but Prim instantly pins the movement that caught his good eye.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, it’s her.”

“Does she look okay?”

Prim bites her lip until she tastes blood. Her sister is thinner than last time, and her clothes are worse for wear, hanging from her frame and torn at the knees and elbows. It’s not hard to guess how they got that way. Katniss crouches and crawls, scrambling and skittering, toward them. Her eyes dart and fixate, scanning, distrustful, almost feral. Her hair’s grown tangled and when she gets within arm’s reach, Prim can see her nails are overgrown and broken and dirty.

Prim wants to cry. She wants to scream. She wants to tie Katniss up in her own game bag and haul her back home and wash her and feed her and — and save her.

She couldn’t save Mom. She has to save Katniss.

 _Gently,_ she tells herself. _You can’t catch her if she runs_. Slowly, she takes a piece of bread from beside her and holds it out.

Katniss stares. 

“It’s real bread,” Prim promises. “Come on. Eat up.”

Katniss might have convinced herself they’re ghosts, burned away in the carnage that obliterated the Capitol and took their mother, but she snatches the food greedily, wolfs it down and wipes her mouth. 

“Thanks,” she says. Her voice is raspy and strange. Gale turns away, seemingly unable to bear it.

“Here.” Prim produces more bread and the pack of jerky. “Take it all.”

Katniss does, hurriedly stuffing it into the tatty folds of her jacket. 

“Hey,” Prim coos. “There’s no rush.” She reaches out. “Stay.”

“I can’t. Not for long,” Katniss says. There’s a frantic excitement in her tone. “They changed the rules. Two of us can come home.”

“I know,” Prim murmurs. “I know. But just … just a minute … ”

“I really … ” Katniss peers up at the sky, frowning. “I really can’t, Prim. It’s not safe. Careers.”

“Catnip, there are no Ca — ”

Prim stops Gale before he can finish that sentence. Instead, she says, trying not to beg,

“Katniss, it’s getting so cold. I — I know a shelter nearby here where you can rest and stay warm. Why don’t you let me show you?” 

Katniss shakes her head. “No, I can’t. I need to — I need to find him. I need … to find … ”

“Peeta,” Prim says. “I know. You need to find Peeta.”

Katniss’s eyes light up at the name and she smiles. It would be such an encouraging expression were it not for the way it stretches her hollow face, grotesque and pitiful. “Yes,” she breathes. “Peeta. You’d like him, Prim. You look a little like him.”

One hand tremulously brushes at Prim’s hair. 

“He’s so kind. And so gentle and so brave. Prim, he loves me.”

“I know he does,” Prim says on a choked back sob.

“And you know what, Prim? I think I might love him too.”

“That’s good. That’s good, Katniss. I’m glad for you.” She cups her sister’s cheek, and Katniss leans into the touch, just for a heartbeat. Prim is seized by a sudden, mad idea. “Why don’t you come back into town with me? We can go to the bakery, if you want. Hear that? We can visit the bakery.”

“Town? What do you mean? Town is … back home. Back in Twelve.”

“Katniss, we are in Twelve.” Gale answers before Prim can stop him. “We are home.”

Katniss’s eyes widen and she turns to Prim, confusion and hope swirling in her gaze. Prim’s heart gives a wild jolt.

“Are we home?” Katniss whispers. “Are we really home, Prim?”

“Yes!” Prim can’t hold back the sob this time. “Yes, we are. We are.”

“They let us come home,” Katniss gasps. “They let us come home!”

“They let you come home,” Prim confirms.

Katniss goes rigid. “Me?”

“They let you come home, yes,” Prim says.

“Just me?”

“I — ”

“Both of us, right?”

“Um — ” Prim’s ears fill with static.

_Cameras._

_Bright lights in Katniss’s frightened face._

_Plutarch and Cressida fussing over a shot._

_Cameras._

_Lights in Katniss’s face._

_Wishing she could do something. Wishing she could be the Mockingjay instead, take her sister’s place, like Katniss did for her._

_Cameras._

_Lights._

_She shouldn’t have wished it._

_First came the roses. A prelude. Red as a warning. Red as blood. Meant to be read, but no one understood the message until it was too late._

_Then came the body. White suit. White skin. White petals stuffed in his mouth. Dropped delicately by a hovercraft claw, like bullseye in the middle of the ring of debris._

_She’ll never forget the image of her sister, curled up around him like a protective cat, nuzzling his face at first, murmuring soft, sweet things to him. Then shaking him, ignoring the sickening loll of his head. Then screaming, accusing, slapping his face and pounding her fist into his chest. Then sobbing, hunched over, spine contorting in grief. And finally, worst, hysterically, laughing. Laughing and laughing and laughing until the whole of 13 seemed to echo with it._

_“Convinced you!” she’d choked out between gasps of manic mirth, like a child’s playful taunt. “Convinced you!”_

“Both of us, Prim?” It’s a plea and it’s the most lucid she’s sounded in months. The most lucid she’s sounded since she last asked this question, the night Prim woke to find that her sister had climbed out a window and run into the woods. “Did they let both of us come home?”

And the Mockingjay tells herself it was worth it, that the truth would have been worse, that’s it’s better this way, to let Katniss hope, when she looks her sister in the eyes and says “not yet” and watches her vanish again into the dark beyond the lake, forever searching the arena in her mind for a boy whose cannon should’ve sounded long ago. 


End file.
